Vermont painting worth millions needs facelift

Director of St. Johnsbury Athenaeum talks significance of Albert Bierstadt's "The Domes of the Yosemite" and the fundraising to refurbish the painting
BRENT HALLENBECK/FREE PRESS

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"The Domes of the Yosemite" by Albert Bierstadt at the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum, seen on Friday, January 13, 2017, is slated for restoration. The painting has been moved away from the wall in preparation for transport to Miami where the work will take place.(Photo: GLENN RUSSELL/FREE PRESS)Buy Photo

ST. JOHNSBURY – Walk in the doors of a lovely Victorian building smack in the middle of town, through an old library that smells splendidly of well-read books and into a spacious, sky-lit gallery and you’ll find one of the most famous - and undoubtedly valuable - paintings in all of Vermont.

The 19th-century American landscape painter Albert Bierstadt is renowned to art lovers but less so to the general public. His 1867 work “The Domes of the Yosemite,” on the other hand, screams for attention. It captures all the glory of the northern California landmark and then some, and while it’s not exactly life-sized, the 10-by-15-foot painting displayed at the back of the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum is practically a billboard for the glories of the American landscape.

“This was the first kind of (American) art that didn’t seem completely derivative of European art,” said Bob Joly, director of the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum, referring to the Hudson River School of Art that counted Bierstadt among its most significant painters. “This is Manifest Destiny, and that is the grandeur of the country.”

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"The Domes of the Yosemite" by Alfred Bierstadt at The St. Johnsbury Athenaeum on Wednesday, December 21, 2011.(Photo: GLENN RUSSELL/FREE PRESS FILE)

That grandeur has taken a hit in 150 years. The painting that casts the granite formations and rugged woods of Yosemite in their literal and figurative best light is showing its age through cracks and sagging. The painting will be removed from the Athenaeum this fall and shipped to an art-conservation company in Miami. The Athenaeum is in the midst of a $150,000 fundraising campaign to refurbish the painting and the gallery’s HVAC system, with the goal of returning the restored work to St. Johnsbury in the spring of 2018.

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Bob Joly, director of the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum, discusses the upcoming restoration of Albert Bierstadt's "The Domes of the Yosemite" on Friday, January 13, 2017.(Photo: GLENN RUSSELL/FREE PRESS)

That’s a fair amount of money for a library and art gallery with an annual budget just over $500,000. It’s also a pittance compared to what “The Domes of the Yosemite” is likely worth.

“Is it $5 million? $50 million? We don’t know,” said Joly, who declined to reveal how much the painting is insured for.

A smaller Bierstadt painting sold for more than $7.3 million in 2008. The Shelburne Museum’s paintings by Manet, Monet, Degas and other European Impressionists and the Bennington Museum’s works by Grandma Moses are worth countless millions, but Bierstadt’s “Domes” is in the conversation for most valuable paintings housed in Vermont.

“It’s by far the most expensive, valuable painting in here,” Joly said of “The Domes of the Yosemite,” which shares wall space with works by well-known 19th-century American landscape painters such as Jasper Cropsey and Sanford Gifford.

“The Domes of the Yosemite” came to St. Johnsbury in 1873 after Bierstadt was commissioned to paint it by Connecticut businessman LeGrand Lockwood, who paid $25,000. Horace Fairbanks, a member of St. Johnsbury’s wealthy Fairbanks Scales family who started the Athenaeum, bought Bierstadt’s monumental canvas for a bargain price of $5,100 after LeGrand ran into financial problems.

“The fact that it’s here and part of this collection is a bit of an accident,” Joly said. “It was kind of a coup.”

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Bob Joly, director of the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum, examines the back of Albert Bierstadt's "The Domes of the Yosemite" on Friday, January 13, 2017. The painting has been pulled away from the wall in preparation for transport to Miami where it will be restored.(Photo: GLENN RUSSELL/FREE PRESS)

“The Domes of the Yosemite” has resided in the Northeast Kingdom for 144 years. The 1871 building is not climate-controlled for valuable art, so Bierstadt’s massive work has endured expansion from summer moisture and contraction from winter dryness. The framed artwork, supported in back by a series of cords and boards, shows signs of sagging, vertical and diagonal lines, a few cracks in the paint and a couple of holes possibly caused by pencil pokes that haven’t been filled in with the same artistry Bierstadt employed to create the painting.

Now set at an angle away from the wall so workers can better access it, “The Domes of the Yosemite” awaits the restoration work of ArtCare, a preservation organization with offices in New York, California and Miami. The company’s owner/president, Rustin Levenson, has been up to Vermont to perform what she called “emergency treatment” of Bierstadt’s painting.

“We’re really looking forward to it,” Levenson said of the project. “It’s an amazing picture.”

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Bob Joly, director of the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum, examines the back of Albert Bierstadt's "The Domes of the Yosemite" on Friday, January 13, 2017. The painting has been pulled away from the wall in preparation for transport to Miami where it will be restored.(Photo: GLENN RUSSELL/FREE PRESS)

It’s an amazing picture that needs tender loving care. “The main concern is that the canvas is, you know, 150-some years old, more than that, and that it’s become weakened over time,” she said. The work is splitting at the fold where it’s tacked to the stretcher and starting collapse under its own weight, Levenson said.

“It’s definitely come to the moment in time where it needs some serious attention,” she said.

Her previous examination of “The Domes of the Yosemite” found a difference in the paint around the edge of the canvas from the face of the painting, which makes Levenson wonder if Bierstadt changed his mind about the painting as he went. While the painting is in Miami she said ArtCare will do some scholarly work as well as restoration.

“All that kind of nerdy science and art-historical stuff is going to be super-fun,” Levenson said.

The Athenaeum began a fundraising campaign last September to gather $100,000 from the organization’s group of donors and $50,000 from other sources including grants. The goal was to get to $100,000 by this October, but the tally has already reached $136,000, according to Scott Davis, development officer for the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum.

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Bob Joly, director of the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum, discusses the upcoming restoration of Albert Bierstadt's "The Domes of the Yosemite" on Friday, January 13, 2017.(Photo: GLENN RUSSELL/FREE PRESS)

“They responded big-time for this painting,” Davis said of the donors. “We realized how much people really value it.”

There’s a reason for that, according to Davis, who said “The Domes of the Yosemite” is the most-significant work in one of the most-significant buildings in the community.

Come October, work crews will remove the canvas from the frame and the stretcher that supports the painting and roll it paint-side-out to reduce cracking before slipping “The Domes of the Yosemite” into a concrete tube for shipping. Joly said restorers will then take the painting out of St. Johnsbury for its trip to Miami in 21st-century style.

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A detail of Albert Bierstadt's "The Domes of the Yosemite" at the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum on Friday, January 13, 2017. The painting is slated to be restored.(Photo: GLENN RUSSELL/FREE PRESS)

“They’re coming in a Mercedes-Benz van,” he said, “so it’s going to have a good ride.”

Vermont art at auction

A trio of paintings by 19th-century Vermont artist James Hope sold for $108,750 in an auction held Jan. 21 by Sotheby’s in New York, according to information from Alexandra Fizer, associate press officer for the auction.

The big hit of the three, “Clarendon Springs, Vermont,” fetched $87,500, exceeding the estimated price of $30,000-$50,000. A painting of West Rutland returned $18,750, more than the $8,000-$12,000 estimate. Another Vermont landscape sold for $2,500, below the $5,000-$7,000 estimate. Two of Hope’s paintings in the auction did not sell.

Hope was born in Scotland and lived in Canada before coming to Fair Haven for an apprenticeship to a wagon-maker, according to the website askART. His works were part of an auction titled “Important American Folk Art from the Ralph and Suzanne Katz Collection” that brought in $1,379,750.